Recently, a hydrogen station which supplies hydrogen gas to a fuel cell-powered vehicle is proposed. In the hydrogen station, a compression device which supplies hydrogen gas in a compressed state in order to fill the fuel cell-powered vehicle with hydrogen gas efficiently is used. The compression device is provided with a compressor which compresses hydrogen gas, and a gas cooler which cools the hydrogen gas whose temperature is raised by being compressed by the compressor. As the gas cooler, for example, the use of a plate-type heat exchanger as indicated in the following Patent Document 1 is proposed.
The plate-type heat exchanger consists of a laminated body in which a number of plates are laminated. Between the laminated plates, flow passages for allowing fluid to flow therethrough are formed respectively. Then, within the heat exchanger, heat exchange between fluids flowing respectively to the flow passages next to each other in the lamination direction of the plates is conducted.
By the way, in the above compression device, a lot of pipes for connecting the compressor and the gas cooler are required. Therefore, there is a need to secure a wide installation space. Moreover, the hydrogen gas discharged from the compressor is at high pressure, so that pipes of high strength and high pressure resistance are required. Hence, the manufacturing cost of the compression device is increased. Moreover, in the above compression device, there is also a need to prevent leakage of hydrogen gas from the pipes.